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Abstract Numerous studies have indicated a connection between psychiatric symptoms, specifically anxiety and depression, and gastroesophageal reflux. However, the precise nature of the link between the severity of gastroesophageal reflux disease and the severity of anxiety and depression remains uncertain. Here, we gathered 24-h pH monitoring data and baseline patient information from a cohort of 518 individuals. Additionally, we evaluated their psychological well-being using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The relationship between baseline characteristics and varying degrees of anxiety, depression, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) was assessed using R software version 4.1.3 and logistic regression models. The findings indicate a statistically significant variation in anxiety levels based on gender, as well as a significant disparity in depression groups when considering age and literacy levels. Kruskal–Wallis test analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between the severity of anxiety and depression and the 24-h pH monitoring results in our patient cohort. As the anxiety and depression levels increased, the rank mean for each examination result also increased. Logistic regression modeling analysis showed that a higher anxiety level was associated with a higher level of GERD. In the presence of mild anxiety, there is a statistically significant association with a higher incidence of GERD with an odds ratio (OR) of 2.64 (95% CI 1.50, 4.64). Similarly, the moderately severe anxiety group also exhibits a causal relationship with an increased GERD incidence, with an OR of 6.84 (95% CI 3.92, 12.17). Additionally, moderate to severe depression is associated with a higher incidence of GERD, with an OR of 2.32 (95% CI 1.23, 4.37). The prevalence of GERD was greater among males compared to females (OR 2.29, 95% CI 1.51–3.49). Additionally, an elevated body mass index (BMI) demonstrated a positive correlation with the susceptibility to GERD (OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01–1.14). Increasing age may promote the occurrence of GERD in patients. These findings may help to provide a better basis for psychological or pharmacological interventions for GERD patients with psychosomatic symptoms in the future, and provide a reference basis for clinical treatment of the disease.

Abstract Climate change is a challenge for global sustainable development. The transportation sector contributes considerably to global greenhouse gas emissions. In China, it accounts for about 10% of total CO2 emissions with high mitigation potential. Public transit systems can save energy and reduce carbon emissions. Carbon-inclusive action based on digital technology is becoming the primary measure for promoting green transit in China. To understand the level and nature of the public’s awareness of green transit and identify potential pathways to change their behaviors toward green transit, this study collected 7369 questionnaires nationwide and examined the public’s behavior and preferences regarding green transportation and their attitudes toward digital technologies that support green transportation, in the first such study in the Chinese context. The study found that (1) most respondents understand and accept the concept of green transportation, especially younger respondents, under the age of 39; (2) convenience, safety, and weather are the most important factors considered; (3) digital tools provide innovative and interesting options for public participation in green mobility. The government, social organizations, enterprises, and various stakeholders must strive to foster consensus and collaborative participation. This involves partnering with digital technology enterprises and establishing emission reduction standards for low-carbon living, particularly in the realm of green transportation.

Abstract Background Clinical decision-making involves ethical issues that become more and more complex. Nurse interns must be more skilled in making rational and timely decisions when facing ethical dilemmas. The contributing factors and their relationships that challenge ethical decision-making among nurse interns must be fully understood, as this level of knowledge can support the development of strategies and interventions that improve the ethical decision-making ability of nurse interns. Objective This study examined the relationships between moral courage, moral sensitivity, and ethical decision-making by nurse interns. In addition, we investigated whether moral sensitivity mediates the relationship between moral courage and ethical decision-making. Design A descriptive cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire. Setting The study sampled nurse interns from Class iii Grade A general hospitals in Sichuan Province, China. Participants A convenience sampling method was used to select 1334 nurse interns from March 2022 to May 2022. Methods A general information questionnaire, the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale (NMCS), the Chinese Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire (MSQ), and the Judgement About Nursing Decision (JAND) were used for data collection. Data was processed and analysed using SPSS 26.0 and Amos 28.0. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and structural equation modelling. Results Moral courage was found to be positively correlated with ethical decision-making (P

Abstract SMYD2, as an oncogene, has been involved in multiple types of cancer, but the potential role of SMYD2 in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) remains enigmatic and requires further investigation. Hence, this study was conducted with the main objective of analyzing the effect of SMYD2 on GIST. GIST and adjacent normal tissues were collected from 46 patients with GIST where the expression of EZH2, SMYD2, and TET1 was determined, followed by the analysis of their interactions. The functional role of SMYD2 in cell biological functions was determined using a loss-of-function assay in GIST-T1 cells. Nude mouse xenograft experiments were performed to verify the role of the SMYD2/EZH2/TET1 axis in GIST in vivo. EZH2 was upregulated in GIST tissues and cell lines, which was positively correlated with SMYD2 expression and inversely correlated with TET1 expression in GIST tissues. EZH2 silencing due to SMYD2 inhibition reduced GIST-T1 cell proliferation and accelerated cell senescence. EZH2 repressed TET1 expression by promoting H3K27me3 methylation in the TET1 promoter region. TET1 inhibition reversed the effect of EZH2 silencing on the biological functions of GIST-T1 cells. In vivo data further revealed the promoting effect of SMYD2 on the progression of GIST by regulating the EZH2/TET1 axis. Overall, this study demonstrates that SMYD2 can increase EZH2 expression while suppressing TET1 expression, thus accelerating GIST, and creating new treatment opportunities for GIST.

This study evaluated 72 universities' performance innovation during 2011 to 2019 of panel data, using the data envelopment analysis-Malmquist method. The study used benchmark regression to analyse the relationship between digital finance and the universities' innovation performance. The aim was to improve innovation performance and promote national innovation across countries. According to the results of the empirical analysis, digital finance positively affects innovation performance. That finding was confirmed through advanced robustness test evaluation, such as limited information maximum likelihood, two-stage least squares, and interactive fixed effects. Moreover, based on information theory, the digital finance influence mechanism improves credit demand and financial efficiency. Additionally, innovation performance survived spatial overflow effects. Lastly, the paper concludes with some implications for improving digital financial coverage and constructing innovation networks among universities.

In this paper, the system response, stress redistribution, failure mode, and catenary effect of steel frames with circular tube columns and cast steel stiffener (CSS) joints under a sudden column removal scenario were revealed. Based on this force transfer mechanism analysis, a practical and computationally efficient component-based model considering catenary effects and CSS joint details with a series of springs was established and validated by a detailed solid-element method. By using this component-based model, the proper dynamic response increase factor of the CSS joint frames was investigated. The results show that the great overall stiffness and strength of the CSS limit the deformation of the column front shell. Therefore, the CSS joint frames have superior performance for progressive collapse prevention than the frames using welded joints without stiffeners. In addition, the component-based model is validated to be effective and the dynamic response increase factor of the frames with circular tube columns and CSS joints is smaller than 2.0.

Abstract Background Cancer stem cells (CSCs), drug-resistant cancer cell subsets, are known to be responsible for tumor metastasis and relapse. The JAK/STAT pathway, activated by SH2 domain, is known to regulate the tumor growth in gastric cancer (GC). Now, this study was designed to examine whether BMX-ARHGAP affects the GC stem cell properties and the underlying regulatory network via JAK/STAT axis. Methods BMX-ARHGAP expression was characterized in GC tissues and cells by RT-qPCR and western blot assay. When BMX-ARHGAP was overexpressed or silenced via plasmids or siRNA transfection, the stem cell properties were assessed by determining stem cell markers CD133, CD44, SOX2 and Nanog, followed by cell sphere and colony formation assays. Subsequently, cell proliferation and invasion were examined by conducting EdU and Transwell assays. The JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway activation was inhibited using AG490. ARHGAP12, BMX exon 10–11, BXM-SH2, JAK2 and STAT3 expression patterns were all determined to examine the regulatory network. The stem cell property in nude mice was also tested. Results BMX-ARHGAP was determined to be enriched in the GC. Overexpression of BMX-ARHGAP resulted in increased expression of CD133, CD44, SOX2 and Nanog protein, and accelerated proliferation and invasion of CD133+CD44+ cells as well as facilitated self-renewal potential of GC cells. However, the inhibition of the JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway reversed the stimulating effect of BMX-ARHGAP on proliferative and invasion abilities of CD133+CD44+ cells. The overexpression of BMX-ARHGAP was suggested to increase the BMX-SH2 protein expression via ARHGAP 5′UTR, and activate the JAK/STAT3 signaling pathway. Also, BMX-ARHGAP promoted tumor growth in nude mice. Conclusions The aforementioned results demonstrated that the BMX-ARHGAP-dependent SH2 domain-JAK/STAT3 axis mediates the maintenance of GC stem cells, benefiting the development of new potential therapeutic targets for GC.

The processing and production of Steel Plate Shear Wall (SPSW) is introduced first in this paper. Taking a typical SPSW unit as the example, this paper states the classified principles of SPSW in the production and the basic processing of SPSW. Moreover, the common installation approaches and the axial compression occurrence due to different construction sequences are proposed in this paper. The reduction coefficient formula of the compression steel sheet wall shear capacity could be obtained by the finite element computation. The welding is the major SPSW connection way.

This paper elaborates the research on mechanical behavior of shoulder beam joint of CFST column in China based on the experimental research, finite element analysis and theoretical calculation. Besides, this paper summarizes and analyses the design approaches of shoulder beam joint of CFST column, which is instructive for the further related studies and applications. Finally, this paper presents some existing problems which occurred in current researches on shoulder beam joint of CFST column.

Welding is a major connection mode of SPSW (Steel Plate Shear Wall). However, the residual stress and deformation have great influence on the SPSW bearing capacity. A sound welding sequence and a welding technology are required so as to minimize the negative effect on SPSW stress. Therefore, in this paper, Exquisite FEM is selected as the way to analyze the full welding process of SPSW. Accordingly, the basic principles of SPSW welding are discussed in this paper.

The paternal genome undergoes a massive exchange of histone with protamine for compaction into sperm during spermiogenesis. Upon fertilization, this process is potently reversed, which is essential for parental genome reprogramming and subsequent activation; however, it remains poorly understood how this fundamental process is initiated and regulated. Here, we report that the previously characterized splicing kinase SRPK1 initiates this life-beginning event by catalyzing site-specific phosphorylation of protamine, thereby triggering protamine-to-histone exchange in the fertilized oocyte. Interestingly, protamine undergoes a DNA-dependent phase transition to gel-like condensates and SRPK1-mediated phosphorylation likely helps open up such structures to enhance protamine dismissal by nucleoplasmin (NPM2) and enable the recruitment of HIRA for H3.3 deposition. Remarkably, genome-wide assay for transposase-accessible chromatin sequencing (ATAC-seq) analysis reveals that selective chromatin accessibility in both sperm and MII oocytes is largely erased in early pronuclei in a protamine phosphorylation-dependent manner, suggesting that SRPK1-catalyzed phosphorylation initiates a highly synchronized reorganization program in both parental genomes.

Heart performance relies on highly coordinated excitation-contraction (EC) coupling, and defects in this critical process may be exacerbated by additional genetic defects and/or environmental insults to cause eventual heart failure. Here we report a regulatory pathway consisting of the RNA binding protein RBFox2, a stress-induced microRNA miR-34a, and the essential EC coupler JPH2. In this pathway, initial cardiac defects diminish RBFox2 expression, which induces transcriptional repression of miR-34a, and elevated miR-34a targets Jph2 to impair EC coupling, which further manifests heart dysfunction, leading to progressive heart failure. The key contribution of miR-34a to this process is further established by administrating its mimic, which is sufficient to induce cardiac defects, and by using its antagomir to alleviate RBFox2 depletion-induced heart dysfunction. These findings elucidate a potential feed-forward mechanism to account for a critical transition to cardiac decompensation and suggest a potential therapeutic avenue against heart failure.

Evaluating scientific articles has always been a challenging task, made even more difficult by the constantly evolving citation networks. Despite numerous attempts at solving this problem, most existing approaches fail to consider the link relationships within the citation network, which can often result in biased evaluation results. To overcome this limitation, we present an optimization ranking algorithm that leverages the P-Rank algorithm and weighted citation networks to provide a more accurate article ranking. The proposed approach employs two hyperbolic tangent functions to calculate the corresponding age of articles and the number of citations, while also updating the link relationships of each paper node in the citation network. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach using three evaluation indicators and conduct experiments on three public datasets. The obtained experimental results demonstrate that the optimization article ranking method can achieve competitive performance when compared to other unweighted ranking algorithms. In addition, we note that the optimal Spearman’s rank correlation and robustness can all be achieved by using a combination of the following parameters: α=10, β=5, and γ=2.